To think State education is really poor?

[Boswelian]

We sent our eldest to a taster day at a private school. He was agog. His school don't allow playing on the grass when it's wet. The private school change them into waterproofs and wellies for break. PE 3x a week. Sport every day. Dedicated specialist teaching in art, DT, languages, sciences etc. 16 in a class instead of 30. The difference in the quality of life between the two school has really blown my mind. The state school is "outstanding". The private school reckon DS is 2 years behind their curriculum. We've been told in state that he's meeting expectations. How is this remotely acceptable?

The day of proper comprehensives has past and it isn't coming back.
In fact the proper funding of state education has gone. I work in FE and that's even more poorly funded than secondary education.
That's why we need a cross party debate snd agreement about what education in the 21st century should look like and how we fund it.
Personally I think there should be a ring fenced education tax for all higher rate tax payers. The only sustainable way of raising money is through income tax.
Getting rid of grammars/private schools has zero impact unless education as a whole is properly funded.

@CurlewKate

What is a ‘proper comprehensive’? I went to a sht comprehensive. We were lucky if we had the same teacher for more than 2 terms. Kids fought. Boys set the school on fire. Sexualising girls (xxxx YOU’RE A SLAG) Etc etc etc. I was one of the few to get out alive tbf. It finished at age 16 then to do A Levels we went to an equally sht college. Not that I knew any different. I had good friends etc, but education wise no

The teachers were great, but even then 86-91, 91-93, morale and resources were rock bottom.

As I made more money (because Despite the crap some succeed) I knew I’d never send my children to such a school, if I could help it.

@opticalconclusion You went to a shit school and I'm sorry about that.

The problem with talking about. Grammar schools as a solution to what people perceive as the "one size fits all" issue is that you create a "two sizes fits all" system where "our" children go to the grammar school and "their" children go to the secondary modern. But hey, "our" children are OK......

They didn't. They said. "We can't afford VAT as yhat will be 20% plus fee rise per year"

Read it again and maybe stop being so rude.

We have friends in Sweden, the children there have to follow a core curriculum but most schools are run independently despite being state funded so they can go with what works for their pupils.

they also don’t sit centralised exams and are graded by their teachers

sounds a great way of doing it IMO

Yes I said it will be the fees + annual rise + 20% per year.
So we will actually pay above 20% every year
Year 1 10K fees (as an example)

• 20% VAT

Year 2 10K fees + 5% annual increase

• 20% VAT

Etc etc

Totally agree with twisty. Education needs wholesale reform. Tinkering at the edges with this vat thing and grammars totally misses the point. Schools are still 19th century. Blazers and ties! Dd1 a levels are the same curriculum i did and I’m nearly 50. AI round the corner. Needs massive change the rise in mental health issues for unhappy pupils backs that up.

It’s not the state’s school fault it’s the Lack of funding and shortage of staff, I’m a History teacher and I have had to cover some Geography lessons recently as for the past year we haven’t been able to recruit a Geography teacher the past year even though we are an outstanding school with high staff retention rates. People just don’t want to be teachers anymore for many reasons - pay and conditions.

Average fees are £15k. VAT on that will be £250 a month. I absolutely don’t believe that people paying £15k a year with such hatred of the state system won’t shuffle their direct debits and shop at lidl in order to save their delicate flowers from the horrors of state schools.

Yes grammars need to go too.

I agree. Only 7% of children use private schools. When you take out foreign pupils, boarders, forces kids etc the number is very modest meaning if even all of those were there due to appalling state provision it wouldn’t equate to that many poor state schools.

That is of little solace to those of us who are faced with a disastrous state option though.

But a significant part of the £150k more valuable house would be capitalised. The school fees aren't. It's not simple arithmetic.

We tried teacher-graded assessments. The people paying for grades all got A*

Some of us aren't bothered about amassing assets though. We could have afforded the house move but we chose not to. I would rather invest my money in DDs education, this way we can also hopefully pay for her through Uni too. A house move would mean we couldn't do that.

You epitomise Labour’s race to the bottom.

No quite the reverse.

That argument is flawed. Everyone has a tipping point price for every single purchase they make.

It is simple economics that as soon as prices increase demand falls assuming supply remains constant. The notion that every single family could afford the increase is ridiculous.

The money in the house move would be an investment which could be cashed in for future funding of university fees. The private school fees have zero tangible financial return. They are very different types of spends.

Basic economics. Wish we had more of it in education

Well you must have had a sudden Road to Damascus moment since your previous posts were written if that’s now the case.

My DD goes to an inner city state school with very significant levels of disadvantage. They study Spanish in yr 2 and have an after school languages club, yoga club and go on trips to see world
renowned orchestras. She can wrote beautifully much better than I could when several years older and is learning to code. We meet kids from the local prep school pit of school and they don’t seem further ahead at all. Im not sure what the local private school could offer except a posher clientele!

And then struggled when they got to university.

Perhaps but the bigger point is they took up places on inflated grades that should have gone to other more talented DC.

But you have to factor in human behaviour, emotion and values and that is not quite as straight line.